King Charles visited a kebab shop while meeting people collecting aid for the victims of the earthquake in Turkey.
His Majesty spent the day chatting with one of London’s Turkish communities, telling them how ‘deeply sorry’ he was about the natural disaster in their homeland.
As part of the trip, he popped into the Mangal Kebab Restaurant, in Hounslow, west London.
He was filmed shaking hands with the chefs and joking about whether they had any special ingredients to attract diners.
The 74-year-old monarch spoke with people collecting blankets, food, and warm clothing for those affected by last week’s earthquake.
He was joined by the Turkish Ambassador to the UK, Umit Yalcin, and then the pair were given a tour of the operation by a volunteer.
At one point, the King was served a Turkish cup of tea – made with the plant Camellia sinensis and traditionally served in a tulip-shaped glass.
After vesting the kebab shop, the King went to see pop-up support centre for Syrians living in the capital in Trafalgar Square, where he was visibly emotional.
He told a volunteer: ‘I can’t imagine how hard it has been for you. It’s terrible.’
The earthquake’s death toll reached a staggering 35,000 yesterday – making it Turkey’s worst disaster for a century.
Meanwhile, a total of 5,714 people have died in Syria, including both government and rebel-held areas, taking the total number of confirmed deaths to 41,132.
Thousands of survivors have been rescued from under the mountains of rubble on both sides of the border, but many have stressed emergency help has been slow or non-existent.
Stories of miracle rescues have flooded social media in recent days, with videos showing crowds erupting in applause.
But tens of thousands of dead have been found in the last week, and experts say the window for rescues has nearly closed.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on in the early hours of Monday last week.
Thousands of historic buildings, apartment blocks and shops were reduced to not much more that piles of shattered concrete and twisted metal.
At the time, Erdogan said the earthquake was the worst since the 1939 disaster when 33,000 people died.
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